Superficially this score for the Val Kilmer thriller, being
hailed in some quarters as this year's Memento, is similar to John Powell's
work on The Bourne Identity, which I also review this month. Both scores
combine string orchestra with electronics, though where Powell takes a very
obvious dance route Thomas Newman's writing is guided by much more sophisticated
lights; jazz, minimalism and avant garde left-field rock. He also employs
a raft of excellent musicians as soloists, artists playing a remarkable range
of conventional and esoteric instruments and devices. Most notable of the soloists
is the great jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard, himself a distinguished film
composer, guesting on a version of Gil Evan's "Saeta". Apart from
a final short bonus track taken from "the instructional CD Learn to
Yodel" (and yes, it really is yodelling lesson) the remainder of the
disc is Newman all the way, with the composer on piano and the other musicians
handling acoustic and electric guitars, distorted mandolin, sitar, timpani rings,
drum loops, tamboura, shiver tablas, war stick, extended mouthpiece, ewi (electronic
wind instrument), saxophone, sampled voice, electric organ, phonograph, gone
pulse, amplifier, resonating metals, prepared steel guitar, flutes and layered
drones.

Tonal without being particularly melodic, and rhythmic though
largely avoiding the endless variations of American Beauty (1999) Newman
has spun out for the past two years, this is the composer's most creative and
imaginative score in some time. It won't do a thing for those who insist all
scores should follow the "golden age" big orchestral route, but the
orchestrations alone are remarkable and the sound is so clear and detailed as
to allow every detail to shine. The opening "Perpetual Night Party"
catches the attention with a driving art-rock pulse before surrendering to atmospheric
acoustic guitar stating the film's low key main theme. "Tweaker Crash"
is as close as the score comes to the now well over used American Beauty
marimba patterns before Newman heads off into unsettling ambient territory with
"Undress Revised", the beginning of a journey which encompasses a
wide variety of colours, textures and moods from the menacing to the sultry.
It all comes full circle with "Walk to Black", completing an experimental
score which may not get played too often but which offers an intriguing collection
of soundscapes and musical visions pitched somewhere between Angelo Badalamenti's
work for David Lynch and Peter Gabriel's scores for Birdy (1985) and
The Last Temptation of Christ (1989).